The OpenJS Foundation has launched a new website checker tool that detects if the jQuery used is out of date.

The Healthy Web Checkup tool is very straightforward, users simply enter a website address and the tool reports whether it found a version of jQuery, and if so whether it is a current version or out of date. The OpenJS Foundation says that in a study it carried out last year, the Foundation found that 750,000 websites are out of date.

The Foundation analyzed an IDC end-user audit and other research data points to estimate of the 1.9 billion websites worldwide, almost 90% use the open source software jQuery, and one-third of those, over three-quarters of a billion sites, require an upgrade. As you'd expect, the OpenJS Foundation recommends taking immediate action to understand and mitigate risk that a behavioral change to web security is required.

The Foundation says:

"With this tool, we're alerting the broader web community that out of date software can cause security risks. Additionally, if the site's jQuery is old, other software the site depends on may be out of date, too."

While this is potentially the case, we found it harder to find sites that had up-to-date jQuery as opposed to those who are relying on older versions. Many sites are working on the premise of if it ain't broke, don't mess with it, and are waiting for the next version of jQuery (version 4) to be released. jQuery 4 was released in beta in February, and in January, maintainer Michał Gołębiowski-Owczarek said in response to a query on GitHub that:

"I think we'd love to get jQuery 4 released this year as it's been a while since a major update (5.5 years at this point) but that all depends on whether we manage to fix all the blockers."

jQuery 4 will add support for FormData, Trusted Types and CSP. Its source code has also been migrated from AMD to ES modules. The developers have also switched to Rollup for packaging jQuery, and there's an updated slim build,

If you're waiting for jQuery 4 before updating your version, you're in good company. High profile sites that were reported as having out-of-date software include the US Department of Defense, The European Union, and many major shops and online supermarkets, though at least the White House got a clean bill of health!

• Ian Elliot is the author of Just jQuery: The Core UI and  Just jQuery: Events, Async & AJAX. Both these titles are part of the I Programmer Library published by I/O Press.

More Information

Healthy Web Checker

jQuery 4 Beta Details

JQuery Website

Related Articles

GOV.UK Drops jQuery

GitHub Removes jQuery. Why?

jQuery 3.2.1 Is Out - Do We Still Care?

Just jQuery The Core UI - The JQuery Object

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